Happy 2010!

As I'm preparing for a New Year's trip to Washington, DC, I can't help but share these two drawings by Penelope and Pip (the first one) and Pipo Doll (the second one).

I find winter landscapes, especially naked tree branches against the snow rather magical. Check out their other drawings. They are pretty dreamy, too!

Cheers! And have a Happy New Year!!!

Winter Songs

How lovely...

Check out these amazing Winter Songs from The Hotel Cafe.



My favorite from the collection: Fiona Apple's Frosty the Snowman :)


Happy Holidays and lots of joy this season!!

- Marija

Handmade Bird Ornaments

Paper Birds ornaments are really easy to make. All you need is some card-stock paper, glue and glitter. You can also use vellum paper for the wings and jewel accents for the eyes.

Just trace the shape of a bird (in one simple line) on card stock and cut it out, then glitter the whole bird or just the outlines. Be as creative as you like.

I used snow flakes glitter (in three shapes/sizes) from the Martha Stewart collection to cover the bird (both sides), and after the glitter and glue dried, I hot-glued the light-blue vellum paper wings and added the sparkly jewel eyes.




I got the inspiration for these bird ornaments from Paper-Source and Lupin.

Quilled Snowlakes

One of my friends, Marija Pavlovska, is a fellow crafter who also likes to work with paper. She's amazing when it comes to quilling paper and creating snowflake cards, abstract art gift boxes and other amazing things.

Her Etsy shop is coming soon, so stay tuned.

For now, you can take a peek at her work here.

Enjoy!!





I just love the 3D quality of these. Pretty lovely, isn't it?

And these adorable handmade gift boxes are perfect for holding little treasures.





To see other quilled snowflakes, checkout my previous blog post here.

Handmade Ornaments: Felt and Paper

Here's a selection of amazing handmade ornaments that might inspire you to create your own.
Enjoy...









From top to bottom: Felt Acorns made by Fairyfolk, Scalloped Paper Ornaments by Prismera, Quilled Snowflakes by Kirroyale.

Handmade Felt Ornaments

Another fun idea for tree decorations: Handmade Felt Ornaments.



Laura Howard, a.k.a Lupin creates these wonderful decorations from wool felt. You can find these and other lovely things, both to decorate your home and wear in your hair :)

I especially like her handmade headbands.

Dreamy Paper Creations

These amazing paper creations (made by Danish art students for the Danish Embassy Christmas) are currently on sale.

They are pretty dreamy, aren't they?





You can find more info about it here.

Pedal power lights Copenhagen's Christmas tree

A brilliant idea: Copenhagen’s annual Christmas tree this year will be lit up with the help of bicycles.

Danish citizens can ride the 15 bicycles in Copenhagen’s City Hall Square to create enough power for the 700 LED bulbs that adorn the 17-meter-tall tree.

You can see the Christmas tree and the effort here.

This is one of the several features in City Hall Square that will transform this civic space into an environmentally-friendly arena from December 7th to December 18th.

Hopefully, this will help bring attention to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) occurring during the same time period in Copenhagen.

Read more about it here.

Natural Ornaments

Holiday decorations can be especially beautiful when they're handmade AND all-natural.

Check out these ornaments, kissing-balls, wreaths and other decorations made by Allison from NHWoodsCreations.







She collects natural products either from the woods or her NH garden (such as, pine cones, foliage, flowers, bits of wood, etc) and uses them to create her designs.

I'm a big fan of her orange garland and her apple and pine cone wreaths. They look pretty festive, don't they?

Felt Stockings

I recenlty found some amazing felt stockings in rikrak's Etsy shop.

Unfortunately, they all got sold out (well, that's good news for Kristal Davis, a.k.a. rikrak), but you can still see how wonderful they are, and maybe get an idea of how to make your own holiday stockings.

Pretty Cards - ReCycled, ReUsed

I've been browsing though my holiday spam mail these days, and since some of the catalogs I've received had cute images on them, I've decided to re-use some of them, and create interesting holiday cards for my family and friends.

For example, the blue-red-white card above was made from blue colored card stock and some Netflix flyers I got in the mail. I thought the little ornaments on them looked too fun to throw out, so instead, I cut them out and made 2 cards (see the yellow card next to the blue one).



I made the other cards using cutouts from a Paper-Source catalog. I added touches of glitter-glue and glitter gel pens do add some sparkle, a few snowflakes, butterflies (left over from my wedding), lots of little pearly and jeweled accents, and voila ~ one-of-a-kind holiday cards!



They're green and unique, and they're going to the special people in my life.

Holiday Cards w/ TapeSwell

I recently got a few tapes from TapeSwell, and today I made a few holiday cards using the Partridge of Joy decorative packing tape.







You can find some of my new cards in my Etsy shop. The others will go to my family and friends.

Cheers!

Amazonite Chandelier

Usually I'm not a big fan of chandeliers, but I do like this creation by ChandiDesign. I think the Amazonite and Chalcedony stones give it a sort of casual elegance, which I find appealing.







It is a nice idea for a beach or a garden wedding, or even a winter wedding with aqua/white palette. It reminds me a bit of my favorite wedding decoration: a handmade crystal tree. (Especially since I used the same crystals for the tree for my wedding).

Felt Trees

These cute felt trees were made by Amanda Carestio. Her designs can be found in this book.

You can find more info about her, as well as other neat stuff on The Long Thread Blog.

How I like Hope Gangloff's World...

One of my friends sent me a link to Hope Gangloff's drawings and I keep returning to them over and over again.



I find her work oddly moving.

(this one reminds me of Bjork's swan dress ... or women from Japanese woodcuts)




... and I just love her use of red against blue.



You can read more about Hope Gangloff here.